The Prophet Jeremiah asks a few important questions today.

If the Lord was in Zion, then why were they in such a terrible state? (verse 19)  And, if there was a healing ointment available, if there was a physician nearby, then why were they not healed? (verse 22)

The answer:  because they had other interests.  They had other goals, other aspirations.  They wanted to rely upon their own strength and the strength of their neighbors rather than to have faith in God.  Their God must not be the God of Zion, otherwise, they would have cared for the sick, the poor, the lame, the hungry, the isolated, the lonely, and the widows.  They would rely upon the wisdom of God, and live in peace with their neighbors.

This was the scene sometime around 600 B.C., just a few years before the fall of Judah in 587.  The leaders and people of Judah, the southern kingdom, had been straying from God’s ways for generations.  They had formed alliances with Egypt in the hope of avoiding invasion from the north.  They were distressed, and wanted to rely upon their own strength and their wealth – raiding the treasury of the Temple to pay Egypt, rather than trust in God and deal faithfully with their adversary.  Jeremiah was sick at heart (8:18), and distressed over Judah’s conduct.  He sees Judah as doomed, for she has not heeded God’s call for conversion back to his ways.  Then, at the last moment, as we are all prone to do, they realize the problem.  They cried: “Has God left his earthly dwelling in the Temple in Jerusalem (“Zion”)?  Has God deserted us?”

Why is it that we save prayer for when things are falling apart?  Why is it that we turn to God, only after calamity strikes?  Why is it that we abuse ourselves and our relationships, abuse our health, abuse our neighbors, abuse the poor, and then cry to God when things turn sour? 

Jeremiah can’t weep enough for Judah, he wishes that he could avoid this place of disaster, but he can not, for the people are “adulterers” and “traitors.”  The people chose corruption over the ways of God.

Is there no Balm in Gilead?  Is there no healing ointment that can bring healing to the corruption of Judah?  This healing that Jeremiah speaks of is more than just the healing of the body, it is a healing of body, mind, soul, relationships, the economic structure, and nation.  A little later during the service, when you are receiving one of these symbols of healing, anointing with oil, or the washing with water, think of what actions you can take, now, not waiting until the consequences strike, that can bring healing into your life.

Those who followed Jesus, during his ministry in Galilee, were often the poor and the oppressed.  They lived within a system that thrived by oppressing the poor.  They lived by a system where the shots were called by the rich.  The stories Jesus told about the “rich people” getting their due was popular in Jesus’ little circle of disciples.  Jesus called the rich person’s money “dishonest wealth.”  It was wealth obtained through usury.  Mosaic Law forbade charging interest on a loan, but there was a way round this.  Seems that there is always a way around the laws that protect the poor.  Dishonest wealth could be obtained through the barter system.  That’s how the dishonest steward could make his money.  The debtor in all probably received 50 jugs of olive oil but the bill was for 100.  The manager, knowing this, saved himself by settling the account by forgiving the additional 50 jugs of olive oil owed through this common, yet destructive form of debt.  He was shrewd in his dealing with the tenants, making them happy with the settlement, and he was shrewd as the steward, making his master happy with the return of the wealth.

From elsewhere in the New Testament and from the Qumran literature, we know that “the children of light” are those who are spiritually enlightened.  Jesus told the disciples that there were some business-people, like this dishonest steward, who were more pragmatic than were the disciples in affairs of the Kingdom.  So, Jesus advised them to be concerned about the accumulation of heavenly capital by providing for the needy.  If you do this in the little things, then God will see you as trustworthy regarding the larger things of God’s Realm.

Being “faithful” involves sharing, sharing our time, sharing our heart, sharing our possessions, and sharing our wealth...  And it also means that we need to work against, and provide alternatives, to the economic system of usury that burdens the poor.  God, for generations and generations, has been trying to do something new.

My heart was lifted this week when I heard that Congress was working in a by-partisan way to provide health coverage for thousands and thousands of the poor children we have in the United States. 

Then I heard that it would be one of only four times that the President used his veto pen.  The first and third was to veto the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act, in 2005 and 2007, the second was to reject a congressional bill that set a deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq that was vetoed on May first of this year.  And now the fourth will be to veto the healthcare act for poor children.

We live in a difficult age, but not so different from previous times.  In each and every age, to make a difference, it takes decisive action and creative solutions to do things differently.

We too can ask the question that Jeremiah asked:  Is there no balm in Gilead?  Is there no physician there?  Why then has the health of my poor people not been restored?